The present disclosure relates to a toner collecting device which collects a scattered toner and an image forming apparatus including the toner collecting device.
In an electrophotographic type image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine, a printer and a facsimile, a powder developer is mainly used. An electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrier such as a photosensitive drum is visualized into a toner image with the developer (a toner) supplied from a developing device. The toner image is transferred on a sheet directly or via an image carrier such as an intermediate transferring belt, and then subjected to a fixing processing.
When the electrostatic latent image is visualized into the toner image by the developing device, a part of the toner is sometimes scattered, leaks out from the developing device and contaminates an inside of the image forming apparatus. Then, the image forming apparatus may be provided with a toner collecting device. The toner collecting device includes a suction duct connectable to the developing device and a sucking unit, and is configured such that air containing the toner (the floating toner) scattered in the inside of the developing device is sucked through the suction duct by the sucking device, the floating toner is caught by a filter from the sucked air and then collected. The toner collecting device is provided with a vibrating member which vibrates the filter in order to prevent clogging of the filter.
However, even in the above described toner collecting device, a long period of use causes the clogging of the filter to decrease floating toner collecting efficiency of the filter. Alternatively, in order to keep a suction air volume constant for a long period, a filter having a large mesh size is sometimes used. However, if the filter has a large mesh size, it becomes difficult to catch the floating toner surely. As a result, the floating toner penetrating through the filter may enter the sucking device to deteriorate floating toner sucking performance of the sucking device. In addition, the floating toner penetrating through the filter may leak out from the image forming apparatus.